


you know what they say about contact sports

by OverMyFreckledBody



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Awkward Boners, Awkward Flirting, Fluff and Humor, Hockey, M/M, Pining Shane Madej, Pre-Relationship, Unresolved Sexual Tension, shane is a Disaster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 01:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17437568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OverMyFreckledBody/pseuds/OverMyFreckledBody
Summary: So he tackles Ryan.Once.And for good(ish) reason! It doesn't give Ryan any reason to tackle him back.--Or, Shane doesn't know how to talk to boys he thinks are cute. He uses sports as a guise to pull Ryan's pigtails. And seeing as he knows just about jackshit about sports? It goes about as well as one would think.





	you know what they say about contact sports

**Author's Note:**

> I have read this and changed and added stuff at least three times. It's time to stop and let it be free. So, here it is, free, and in the world. 
> 
> My first RPF. You don't know how much I waffled back and forth on whether or not to post this anonymously or not. So, hey. If you're a person I talk on the 'reg with and are judging me for this?
> 
> ....just don't talk to me about it. Let's both wash our hands of that conversation before it can happen. 
> 
> Everyone else? I assume you know why you're here. Go nuts! You guys are probably a lot less freaked out than me, which is for the best. Happy reading.

          Shane was totally paying attention. He was! Just – not a whole… lot of it. Okay, maybe only enough to know where the ball was (and if heading towards him, where to go to get out of its path).

 

          He was getting pretty good at doing that barely paying attention thing, now. Of course, this particular skill gets the most practice in his mandatory P.E. class, but it’s still a pretty useful trick to have.

 

          Regardless, even with the little attention he spared to the sport that he was forced into “playing” (by now, everyone knew he’d just do the bare minimum of participating here), he still noticed the yelling. He caught the way that people were starting to cluster on the field, a little more so than usual. He picked up on the fact that the ball had completely stopped moving. Above all else, his eyes homed in on one particular player, seeming to get awfully pissed about something over there.

 

          Little (well, maybe not _that_ kind of little) Ryan Bergara was standing over there, back straight and muscles tensing in his arms. _Christ_ , those arms –

 

          – nope, he cannot let himself get distracted down that road.

 

          Ryan wasn’t even speaking, but he looked like he was one smart comment away from ripping his helmet off and escalating straight to yelling. Shane almost kind of wanted that to happen, if only to see Ryan’s hair spike up like his metaphorically ruffled feathers. It was always quite a silly sight, and sometimes it took Shane everything he had not to laugh at it.

 

          In all his glory, standing near the crowd of simmering players, Ryan’s image brings to mind something else. And that something else leads to an idea – one much better than simply watching Ryan puff up like any metaphorical birds he could be compared to. An idea that Shane decides to act on without sparing it a single thought beforehand.

 

          Thinking before doing? What’s the _real_ use in that, anyhow?

 

          He isn’t all that far from Ryan, but he charges at him anyway. Ryan doesn’t see him up until the last second, where he turns towards him just in time for Shane not to take a shoulder to his chest. In his surprise, Ryan drops his stick and the both of them hit the ground with a heavy _thump_.

 

          And fuck, after a second, it _kinda_ , well, hurts. Maybe he should have thought about this, after all.

 

          Fortunately, he’d gotten his arm around the back of Ryan’s head so he wasn’t giving him a concussion when he knocked him down. _Unfortunately_ , that’s why his wrist now feels like it’s _pulsing_. Goddamn, that shit hurts, but it doesn’t behave like it’s actually broken or anything. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully not.

 

          Either way, of course, it doesn’t matter. Not when Ryan barely takes a second to gather his breath and let the surprise to wear off before he’s speaking, spitting around his mouth guard really, “What the hell, Shane?”

 

          Up this close, Shane can see the red flush of anger spreading all over his face. His helmet may have blocked the view of it from afar, but it can’t stop Shane from admiring it now. That is, if he can admire it and drop some hot wit at the same time to distract Ryan from the fact that he’s staring at his face.

 

          Yeah, that would certainly make for an awkward moment.

 

          “What _ever_ do you mean?” Shane says, his attempt at being innocent so transparent it might as well be glass. “It looked like there was a fight about to break out, so I did the… hug thing.” When Ryan continues to stare at him without a hint of understanding, Shane adds, “When the players pair up so they don’t just gang up on one guy. They just kind of… embrace.”

 

          After a long moment, Ryan’s face goes from confused to somewhat appalled. “First of all,” Ryan starts, and then wiggles beneath Shane like he’s trying to free his hand to count down on his fingers. He doesn’t quite succeed, unless he meant to make Shane snap his mouth shut as to not gasp at the feeling of Ryan pressing all up against him. “That’s in _ice_ hockey, specifically NHL. We’re playing _field_ hockey. We’re not supposed to be _tackling_ each other. Didn’t you listen to the coach?”

 

          Shane _really_ wants to point out that they’re both _hockey_ , so like, what’s the big deal? Instead, he only shrugs, because, well, no. He never pays attention to anything the coach talks about unless he knows he’ll have to if he wants to pass the class. He doesn’t know anything about stupid _sportsball_ , and at this point, he hopes he never will.

 

          Ryan, of course, rolls his eyes at this, even if Shane didn’t have to say anything. He also very visibly bites down on his mouth guard, which is a little hot, and a lot distracting, but staring at his mouth would be too obvious, so Shane focuses on Ryan’s next words instead.

 

          “Two,” and he doesn’t even try to wiggle again, thankfully, “How’d you even take me down, anyway? You’re a fucking – _beanpole_!”

 

          Which, okay. Uncalled for, but knowing Ryan, Shane should have expected that.

 

          “Don’t insult the goods, Bergara,” Shane retorts, rolling his head back a little to pretend to look at the sky in a long-suffering way. He would have motioned down his so called “goods” to go along with his words, but he kind of doesn’t want to let Ryan up. What can he say? It’s nice having a warm, _built_ body like that pressed so nicely under him. “Besides, it isn’t like we can all buff up like short- _stacked_ here over the summer.”

 

          And damn, isn’t that the truth. Just last year, Ryan was much, much smaller and then suddenly _boom!_ He came back over break as a changed man. Shane spent that first month of school swallowing so much drool that he’s surprised nobody thought he’d taken up ‘chewing. He is, however, more or less used to Ryan’s new look now as long as he doesn’t think about it for more than a second or two.

 

          Not thinking about it is kind of the best life hack he has going for him right now.

 

          Ryan rolls his eyes again, and looks like he’s about to spout off something else disparaging. Even still, he’s got a crinkle in the corners of his eyes, and there’s a grin on the corner of his mouth as he opens it. Before he can say whatever he plans to, he’s interrupted by a sharp crack from the coach.

 

          “Madej!” They both jump, and Shane swings his head around to look over his shoulder. Of course, all the players who’d been too busy arguing to even bother looking down at the two of them on the ground are also quieted by their coach’s voice. The man himself has an unimpressed blank expression on his face that matches his drawl of, “Get the hell off of him. This isn’t nap time, for Christ’s sake.”

 

          “Sir, yes, sir!” Shane calls back and salutes, too, but the man’s already pinching the bridge of his nose and moving to bother with the other players without a real response in return.

 

          He turns back to Ryan, about to shift and let him up, but when they make eye contact, Ryan surprises him by throwing his head back in laughter. Through his laughing, he finally gets a hand free that he uses to punch at Shane’s shoulder as he sits up. Shane can’t help but smile back at him, even if – and maybe because he knows that – Ryan won’t see it.

 

          Ryan’s laugh really is something else. It’s bright, like him, and it seems to come from every inch of him. It’s a sound that seems to speak with his very soul itself, almost. It’s something that Shane likes to hear a lot; one of his favorite sounds, if he had to be _poetic_ or something about it all.

 

          So, he doesn’t say anything over it, letting it die on its own. When Ryan finally starts to calm down, he looks over at Shane and shakes his head. “You’re a moron.”

 

          Despite the words themselves, it’s still soaked in that breathless chuckle from before and said fondly enough to cause a rush of heat from Shane’s ears to his chest. He can’t say he really feels all that offended.

 

* * *

 

 

          Sometime after, the team decides they want to play some “real” hockey out on the ice. If he’s honest, Shane doesn’t know why he’s even been invited. He’s not really part of the “team” that the coach has thrown the whole class into. He knows this. _Everyone_ knows this.

 

          Maybe it’s because he’s the only one that actually knows how to skate worth a damn. Which, come on, it’s almost like he’s from Illinois or something.

 

          …These ‘Cali kids really are something else, sometimes. He’s been here for a couple years now, but they still find ways to surprise him. One person in particular.

 

          One person that skates out onto the ice with that same confidence as when he comes barreling out onto the court. Maybe his skating wasn’t anything he’d win a medal for, but as he did a few quick warmup laps around the rink, Shane could admit that it wasn’t _atrocious_. It was easy enough to tell he had some experience, yeah. Shane wondered how often said person came out to the rink, if he liked to skate every once in a while. If he would like to do it on his own time, maybe without the whole team tagging along, too.

 

          Yeah. Yeah… that thought train was quickly heading into _not-now_ ville. It happened to be a common destination.

 

          So really, all he really knows is that he was tricked. They mentioned something about the ice rink and, well. It’s been a while. That’s all it took to get him into the car.

 

          Oh, god. It was never the strangers, his parents should have been warning him about. It was his own classmates and peers this whole time. What an absolute horror, to be at the hands of a handful of teenagers with no supervision. He’s seen enough movies for this – if they tell him they lost their puppy under the car then he needs to get out of there.

 

          Okay, really, all… that aside, they do make it to the rink without major issue. Except that once he’s there and about to break for the skates, he’s pulled aside and some ill-fitting gear is pressed against his chest. Apparently, the only way he was getting onto the ice was in these smelly things, so who was he to deny the team, right?

 

          Damn. If only it was that easy.

 

          It goes pretty well for the most part, actually. He wears his pads and brings his stick along with him everywhere he skates, of course. Just to pacify everyone else, even if he very obviously stands out of their way. It’s kind of funny, a little, because if there’s one sport he actually knows something about, it’d be this one. Just because it’d be on during the holidays, something his relatives long since stopped trying to badger him into liking. Well, this or baseball, maybe. He was friends with a kid who used to show him his dad’s card collection, much to Shane’s boredom.

 

          Not that anyone really had a made a difference in trying to teach him anything. It was like his brain was a colander that had decided that anything sports-related was _liquid_. And honestly? He couldn’t say he minded that.

 

          He spends his time avoiding the puck and deftly skating out of the way, ignoring the loud crashes and jeers as he gets reacquainted to the almost weightless feeling of having two blades under his feet again. It’s freeing, in a way. He’s much faster, and for once, it feels like his long limbs aren’t working against him, trying to trip him all over the place.

 

          However, the second he’s thinking about to starting to skate backwards, he accidentally comes a little too close to the group. And of course, this happens right as one kid throws an arm around another’s neck and attempts to choke him out. Which means that one particularly bloodthirsty player takes this opportunity to make up for past disputes.

 

          In a series of literal seconds, Shane is slammed into from behind and then into one of the glass walls. For a second, all he can register is shock, and then:

 

          Flush against his back is a very warm body of shorter than himself. As if to combat this, the guy digs his forearm into Shane’s neck to force his head downwards with a sharp exhale. He knows his eyes are unbelievably wide in their sockets. It could be described as perhaps comical, especially given the fact that he isn’t sure that his brain is actually interpreting anything he’s seeing right now.

 

          “Not so nice being the one held down, now is it?” Ryan damn near _purrs_ , tone all mixed up in threats and dark amusement. Shane can feel every wet, hot pant of Ryan’s breath against the shell of his ear.

 

          He closes his eyes and shudders.

 

          Unbeknownst to Shane’s _issues_ , Ryan just laughs, a sharp, loud thing in his throat, claps him on the back, and backs up to skate off. Shane is left standing there, attempting to grab onto his bearings that attempt to slip away from him, his heart pound, pound, _pounding_ in his chest.

 

          God, he fucking hates sports.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for getting this far! Slap that fuckin' kudos button to save a gal from her inner fears. 
> 
> ...no, but really, thanks for reading! Have a wonderful day, my _delightful_ commentary aside.


End file.
